Yellowstone: Nature and Landscapes

Haven’t had much time to go through the images…we’ve been busy shooting all kinds of stuff lately (more to come). Anyway, below are some images of nature that I picked from our trip to Yellowstone.

This first image is from the Grand Teton National Park, which was our initial destination before Yellowstone. The funny thing is, it is called “Grand Tetons” because of the French explorers, that dubbed the peaks “Les Trois Tetons”, which literally means “The Three Breasts” :)

NIKON D700 @ 48mm, ISO 200, 1/125, f/8.0

The water in the below photo was taken during our short hike to Hidden Falls at Jenny Lake. There was too much contrast in the falls and my pictures didn’t come out as good, so I decided to post the running river below instead (which is not that great either). Unfortunately, I didn’t bring a tripod or a camera bag with me, so the best I could do was to put the camera on a rock, set ISO to the lowest number, set minimum aperture of f/22, aperture priority and shoot away. Well, I’ll know better next time :)

NIKON D700 @ 24mm, ISO 100, 1/2, f/22.0

I captured the below image while heading out from the Titons to Yellowstone. Here you can see the “Three Breasts” reflected on Jackson Lake.

NIKON D700 @ 44mm, ISO 200, 1/640, f/8.0

Our second day in Yellowstone was pretty productive in terms of photography. Seeing the landscapes for the first time, it was a challenge for my wife to keep me in the car :) The image of the Yellowstone River below was taken on our way from Bridge Bay campground (where we stayed) to Canyon Village.

NIKON D700 @ 50mm, ISO 280, 1/200, f/8.0

I honestly do not remember the name of this lake, but I took the below two images while everyone was sleeping in the car. Most of the images during our trip were taken hand-held as “point and shoots” and these images were snapped very quickly before I jumped back into the car.

We spent about two hours at the Mammoth Hot Springs before sunset. Those two hours produced a lot of great images that I posted earlier and I couldn’t resist to post another picture of this magnificent wonder.

NIKON D700 @ 24mm, ISO 200, 1/100, f/14.0

Hot water, mixed with calcium carbonate, other chemicals and bacteria that flow out of geysers and hot springs kill all nearby trees. The interesting thing, is that you would think the dead trees are supposed to fall down and disappear over a short period of time. Strangely enough, the dead trees stay there for years, until they are either dissolved, washed away by the springs or torn out by other forces of nature. While the dead trees are still standing, they give us the gloomy feel of death and destruction nature can fiercely inflict upon the living.

NIKON D300 @ 70mm, ISO 200, 1/200, f/10.0

I couldn’t resist to post another image of the Grand Prismatic Spring. The image was captured right before a storm, giving a beautiful reflection of the clouds. Next time, I’ll try to hike to a nearby mountain and try to get a picture like this.

NIKON D700 @ 24mm, ISO 800, 1/400, f/8.0

Can’t remember the name of this river, but it was between Mammoth Hot Springs and Norris Junction.

The above image along with the two images below were captured while driving through the Blacktail Plateau Drive. It rained first, then the clouds started moving and I was able to capture this beautiful scenery.

NIKON D700 @ 70mm, ISO 200, 1/320, f/8.0

I found this particular scene interesting, since it looks like the dead “V” shaped tree below was cut in half by another tree, that is peacefully resting between the tree branches today.

NIKON D700 @ 26mm, ISO 200, 1/400, f/8.0

The panoramic version of the photo below looks much better, but I still decided to go ahead and post it, since I do not have any panoramas done yet.

While heading back from Canyon Village to Bridge Bay campground, there was some heavy traffic because of Bison crossing the road. A photographer with a really old film camera that looked like the Tachihara 4×5 was standing by himself, photographing the below scenery. He was carefully planning the shot, moving different parts and pieces of his camera and shooting against the sun without a lens hood. Obviously, you cannot avoid a lens flare shooting against the sun the same way with a DSLR lens and no hood. The scenery was beautiful, so I decided to also take a couple of pictures and see what I can do. The lens hood wasn’t enough to completely block the sun, so I had to use my left hand to block the sun rays from entering the lens. Even then, I had a couple of small lens flares that I later got rid of in Lightroom. The result didn’t come out as bad and I decided to post the image as the last of these series.

NIKON D700 @ 24mm, ISO 200, 1/125, f/8.0

I hope you enjoyed the nature of Yellowstone. Next, I will go through Yellowstone wildlife and complete the tour by posting some family pics from the trip.

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About Nasim Mansurov

Nasim Mansurov is the author and founder of Photography Life, based out of Denver, Colorado. He is recognized as one of the leading educators in the photography industry, conducting workshops, producing educational videos and frequently writing content for Photography Life. You can follow him on Instagram, 500px and Facebook. Read more about Nasim here.

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